GE Healthcare, the US $17 billion healthcare business of global technology, media and financial services company, General Electric Company (GE), announced that its cardiovascular IT solutions (CVIS) product line Centricity Carddas Xi² will be awarded by Frost & Sullivan with the 2008 Product Line Leadership Award.
“With information systems in cardiology moving away from specific modalities and into single integrated solutions, there is the potential as well as the market need for advanced features. GE Healthcare has kept abreast by investing in a strong portfolio for cardiology image and data management that has allowed the company to set the standards for product features and functionality in Cardiology Information Systems”, said Konstantinos Nikolopoulos, programme leader of healthcare IT and life sciences IT at Frost & Sullivan.
“With in-depth understanding of end-user requirements, robust research and development efforts, demonstrated ability to respond to end-user’s needs and an expanding customer base, GE Healthcare has already created a strong and trustworthy name in the European cardiology information systems market and has laid a firm foundation for further growth in the future”, Nikolopoulos emphasized.
In addition to this great news, GE Healthcare announced the presentation of its new Centricity Carddas Xi² version 3.0 at the European Congress of Cardiology in Munich, Germany. The new version 3.0 offers a set of new features, for example, the shift to the current .NET™ technology, the graphically advanced statistics tool to display statistical results, the scheduler for effective time management and an additional function for clinical vessel based reporting.
“The Product Line Leadership Award 2008 is a great honor for us. It reflects the strong position of Centricity Carddas in the European market and proves that we are delivering the right solution to the challenging environment of cardiology departments with demanding clinical and imaging requirements”, said Juergen Reyinger, vice president and general manager at GE Healthcare IT.
“We never stop and rest on our success. That is why at this year’s European Congress of Cardiology we are able to present the new version 3.0 of our cardiology IT solution to our European customers,” Reyinger proudly added.
With Centricity Carddas Xi² 3.0, an optimized workflow will be a working reality in echocardiography and for the first time ever, a new functional area for cardiology examinations will be introduced in MR. This allows an extremely fast and sound diagnosis of MR images. The tool to set-up user specific data fields raises flexibility while documenting for example clinical studies or relevant data and in addition, meets the expectations of a steadily growing demand for an individual user interface.
“We were among the first pilot sites to test Centricity Carddas Xi? 3.0 in Europe”, said MD Ralf Birkemeyer, leading cardiologist cathlab and intensive care at the Schwarzwald-Baar Clinics situated in Villingen-Schwenningen, Black Forest in Germany.
“The solution is ideal for a profound diagnosis and an optimized workflow in all areas of our cardiology department. The new cardiac MR reporting capabilities help us a lot to keep our cardiology database consistent with all the examination data and findings we are performing in our department,” MD Birkemeyer concluded.
Cardiovascular diseases are a paramount cause of death worldwide. Centricity meets the cardiologist’s demands for advanced data management and PACS capabilities in a common infrastructure for cardiology and radiology. Comprehensive functionality in a simple architecture and improved clinical workflow throughout the cardiology department. This saves time, costs and optimizes processes.